the world is quiet here
by Qzil
Summary: This is not what she imagined the afterlife to be.


Meg wakes up on the ground in a clearing, naked as the day she was reborn on the rack, snow falling around her. Without a word, she gets to her feet, something in her pulling her toward the trees forming a ring around her.

She does not notice that, although she is still covered in her own blood, all her wounds have healed except for the one in her stomach. It no longer bleeds, but gapes open cleanly, like a drawing in a textbook. She ignores it as she walks, snow crunching under her feet and sending sparks of cold up her body.

She ignores the fact that demons aren't supposed to be able to feel cold, ignores the fact that the trees around her are silent, signaling a lack of life in the woods. She ignores when her feet begin to bleed, leaving an easy trail for anything that wants to find her.

Something in her tells her to keep walking and she does, not bothering to try to cover her body or fix the small cuts on her feet. The sun shines down on her, peeking in between the trees that grow so close together it makes her think she's not in a natural forest.

Demons never talked about an afterlife for them, even while she was in Hell, young and faithful and willing to do anything for her father. Oblivion is what she expected when Crowley ran her through, not a snowy wood with the sun beating down on her.

She walks until her feet throb and her legs are ready to fall out from under her, eyes drooping with the need to sleep. She does not question why, after centuries of being a demon, she's feeling things that only humans are supposed to feel. Instead, she finds a bush large enough to camp under and curls into a ball. She sleeps for the first time since Sam Winchester jumped into the Cage and took her God with him, and does not dream.

.

The days follow in the same pattern.

The woods stay silent and the sun never sets, shining down through the trees in patches. The snow never melts or falls harder than a flurry, drifting to the forest floor and turning to water on her skin.

Something in the woods calls her, and she walks until exhaustion sets in and sends her crawling for the nearest bush or tree to sleep, her mind half-buzzing with memories.

Here, in the woods, she remembers the final battle with Crowley and little else. All she knows that is that has to keep walking, and that she should not feel the need to sleep or the cold that seeps into her skin through the Earth.

She knows that it's not her skin, not really, except it is. She'd stolen it and that makes it as good as hers, as if it has always been.

Her wound does not heal; her hair does not grow and darken at the roots. The cuts on her feet re-open each day, but when she looks behind her, she cannot see her own blood trail in the snow, or her footprints. The snow carpeting the forest floor looks pure and untouched, freshly-fallen, and she does not question it.

Meg keeps walking.

.

She stumbles into a stream and curses, voice rusty from disuse, before she picks herself up off her knees. The water is ice-cold, and it cuts through her stolen flesh like a knife. After a moment, she lowers herself into the stream and washes the blood from her body.

She submerges herself completely, and when she breaks the surface, lips blue and gooseflesh rising on her skin, there is a house on the opposite bank that she's sure wasn't there before. She sits back in the water and lets the current tug at her as she studies the house.

It's small and wooden, with a waist-high fence and gate, and a stone path leading up to the door. There's a large tree next to the fence with a large, sturdy-looking branch jutting over into the yard, a swing attached to it. _Perfect for a noose_, she thinks. _Or for the children to play on. _Meg shakes the thoughts away as quickly as they come and stands, letting the icy water run off her body.

She blinks, and the stone path leads right down to the bank.

_Come to me _the house seems to call. _I'm safe. _

She walks to the bank, shivering, and follows the stone path up and through the gate. Inside it, the air is warmer, like springtime, and no snow falls. Weeds poke up through the paving stones, and Meg rips one from the ground and throws it over the fence where the snow still falls.

She stands at the gate and thrusts her hand over it, catching snowflakes in her palm, before she draws it back to her. For a moment, she stares out across the fence and into the forest, still quiet, before she walks back up the path and into the house.

The door opens without a sound, silent as the rest of the world she's in now, spilling the sunlight over the threshold. Automatically, her hand reaches for a light switch that she doesn't find as she steps into the house.

The carpet under her feet is coated with dust, little puffs of it rising up as she walks farther into the one large room. In one corner she spots an old-fashioned stove, the wall a few feet away holding a door to a cupboard. Farther down, the wall is crammed with bookshelves full of dusty, yellowed paperbacks and hardcovers.

Opposite the books is a cheery-looking couch, old and worn and looking like it belongs in the nineteen seventies. A basket, crammed with skeins of yarn and shiny, new knitting needles sits next to it. There's a table in the kitchen that she vaguely recognizes from possessing a girl in the nineteen forties.

Father down the wall, under a large window covered with green drapes, she finds a large, Victorian-style bed covered in old-looking quilts. When she touches it, it is the only object in the room that doesn't send up a cloud of dust. She pulls back the covers and climbs into the bed, tucking the quilts around her.

Warm for the first time since she woke up in the woods, Meg drifts off to sleep.

.

When she wakes, Meg sits up in bed and pulls the drapes open to find the sun is still shining down. She turns to find a wardrobe next to the bed and walks past it, right out the back door of the cottage.

She stands naked in the yard and takes in the chicken coop and shed, the small patch of vegetables growing near the fence and the small shed near the back gate. The trees grow less than a foot beyond the fence, and when she opens it to step out cold air hits her.

Meg throws herself back through the gate and slams it shut. Immediately the air warms and tastes of spring again. The snow falls beyond the boarder of the yard, and somewhere a chicken clucks.

Meg turns and goes back inside. All at once, the silence breaks, and birds begin to sing.

.

The next time she wakes, Meg's stomach growls and twists, knotting itself up. She ignores it, rolling back over under the quilts, until the pain forces her to stand. She searches the cupboard but comes up empty-handed. She hears a chicken cluck again, and steps into the backyard to find a rabbit nibbling on the flowers.

Demon-quick, she pounces and snaps the thing's neck. The tiny body dangles from her hands. She finds a knife in the kitchen and skins the rabbit with practiced ease, as if she's done it a thousand times before. She cannot remember ever skinning an animal, draining the blood and cutting off the feet; pulling out the innards and pulling the fur away from the flesh. It is beneath a demon to do such things.

She remembers hurting humans in that way, showing them their own intestines or flaying their backs during bad moods, ripping off their skins and laughing over their screams. She shakes the memories from her head, cooks her kill, and gorges herself until her stomach tightens and rebels.

She crawls into the bed without bothering to clean the skillet she'd found in the cupboard or get rid of the bones.

.

The silence catches up with her.

Meg breaks every bit of furniture in the house and screams until her throat is raw and her voice is gone. When the house is destroyed, she walks out the back door and through the yard. A chicken runs out of the coop and across her path. The stab wound in her stomach throbs.

She ignores the chicken and walks through the gate. The winter air hits her and rushes through her stab wound as gooseflesh rises on her naked skin. She shakes the feeling and walk the few feet until she is under the trees.

This time, the forest buzzes with life. Birds screech and squirrels chatter around her, and Meg can see the tracks of small animals in the snow. She walks through them, walks until it hurts to put one foot in front of the other and hunger gnaws at her belly. She grits her teeth and keeps going, watches a rabbit spring from the snow and streak across her path as a fox flies after it, belly low to the ground.

She walks until the cold and hunger are too much and the need to sleep hits her, human feelings and human needs that she should not have and does not want. The sun still refuses to set, but she crawls under a bush that's mercifully free of snow and sleeps. When she wakes to the sound of birdsong, the sun is still shining and the world is still cold.

Meg picks herself up and walks again.

.

She finds the stream opposite the house again and curses. Birds scream and fly from the trees, startled by her voice.

_I'm safe_, the house still whispers. _Come back, you're safe here._

Meg knows that there's no such thing as safe, but wades across the stream anyway. Deeper this time, the water comes up to her neck in the middle, flooding her stab wound and making her gasp.

When she opens the door, the furniture is back in order and the evidence of her rabbit dinner is gone. The skillet is back in the cupboard and the drapes above the bed are pulled back, sunlight spilling across the quilt.

Immediately, pain floods her body as feeling returns to her limbs. She walks, unsteady, toward the bed and closes the drapes to darken the room.

When she wakes, hunger twists in her belly again. She rolls over in the bed and the wardrobe seems to beckon her. Meg opens the doors and rifles through the clothes, finding only old-fashioned dresses that she would never wear, but something in her says she once did.

There are stockings and petticoats and a pair of sturdy boots at the bottom of the wardrobe. She pulls them all on and they settle, familiar, over her skin. The stab wound stops hurting as soon as the blue dress she chooses falls against her skin and the petticoat makes a quiet swishing sound as she stumbles out the back door of the cottage.

The chicken runs across her path again, toward the shed, and she follows. The door creaks when she opens it, and Meg finds a basket, a bucket, an axe, and a bag of chicken feed. She takes the basket and the feed and goes back into the yard. Three more chickens run from the coop as she scatters the feed at her feet and walks away, leaving the bag on the ground.

She finds fresh eggs in the coop.

.

The days follow the same pattern, until Meg sits up in bed to barking at the back door. She opens it to find a Hellhound puppy, already the size of a Pomeranian, staring up at her, tongue lolling happily out the side of its mouth. When she doesn't move, it barrels into the cottage and runs for the bed, jumping up to try to reach the quilts.

Meg ignores it and feeds the chickens. Another rabbit nibbles at the flowers she does not tend and quickly becomes part of breakfast. The puppy grabs her skirt and tugs at it while she cooks and dances around her under the table as she eats.

She tosses the hound scraps of rabbit under the table and watches as it gobbles up the meat and begs for more.

She names him Shay, a name that jumps into her mind and feels familiar, and carries the puppy to her bed. It burrows under the quilts and watches her walk out the door to wash the dishes in the stream.

.

She's cooking eggs and boiling some carrots she'd found in the garden when Shay barks at the door before a knock sounds. Meg drops her spoon on the floor and picks up her knife from the counter before she pulls the door open.

"Sam?" Her voice is no longer rusty, having been attempting to train Shay to sit still, or come when he's called.

"Meg?" He stares at her, fully clothed and covered in snow from outside. Her stab wound throbs again. "What are you doing here? Where are we?"

"Dead," she answers. "Come in, I guess." Sam follows her into the house, glancing around at the sparse furniture.

"I smell something burning," he says. She curses and runs for the stove to scrape her eggs out the pan. Shay barks and she shoves the dog away with her foot. "Is that a Hellhound?"

"He just showed up one day." She turns the carrots off and scoops them from the pot, mixing them with the eggs. Not the best food she's had since coming here, but not the worst she can ever remember eating. Any food is better than no food, something tells her. She shakes the thought away and looks at Sam. "At least you're clothed. When I came here I was naked."

"Where's here?" he asks.

Meg shrugs. "I dunno. Not Heaven, I'm guessing. But not Hell, either, even if there's a hound puppy here." She studies him. "How'd you bite it, Winchester?"

"I'm not sure I did," he says. "Look, about the whole Crowley thing, I…"

"Save it," she snaps, slamming her plate onto the table. "I knew what I was doing when I told you to go. Just fill me in on what's been going on."

He does, and Meg whistles, shoving her plate aside and promising to wash it later. "Cure a demon? Seriously?"

Sam shrugged. "Yeah."

"Did you find Castiel?" she asks. "Does he know?"

"Not yet. But I'll tell him," Sam promises. Meg pushes away from the table.

"I gotta feed the chickens."

Sam follows her outside, but walks for her back gate. "Where's the path go?"

"I don't see a path," she snaps, scattering the feed. "I tried to walk out that way. Wound up right back at the stream."

"There's a path," he argues. Meg stares over the fence and into the trees. The woods are quiet again, and the snow falls a little harder past her gate. She does not see a path, does not see anything that breaks the white carpet covering her world.

"Maybe it's your path," she suggests bitterly. "Maybe you get to leave."

"You think?" he asks, putting his hand on the gate. Meg shrugs.

"Shit, Winchester, I don't know." Shay runs out the cottage and jumps, trying to reach Sam's hand. Absentmindedly, Sam scratches the puppy behind the ears.

"You gonna be okay here?" he asks, toying with the latch.

Meg snorts. "I'm stuck in an old-timey cottage, by myself, with chickens and a Hellhound puppy and the only clothes I have make me look like some sort of Renfaire reject. What do you think?"

"Stupid question, I guess."

"You guessed right," Meg takes a deep breath. "Get outta my yard. If you remember any of this, tell Clarence I said bye. Or find a way to get me the Hell outta here."

Sam smiles at her and lifts the latch. "Will do." Meg whistles for Shay and the puppy runs to her side, staring sadly after Sam.

He disappears into the woods, and for a moment Meg thinks she hears the roar of the Impala's engine.

It fades and the forest comes alive with animal sounds again. Somewhere, she hears a goat bleat.

The cottage seems even quieter than before. Shay nudges against her hand.

Meg goes to wash the dishes from her dinner.

.

Shay grows quicker than Meg remembers Hellhounds growing. She thinks it's been at least two weeks since Sam showed up, dead or alive or whatever he was, and the puppy almost reaches her waist.

He barks at everything and chews on her shoes and the table legs. He wakes her up far sooner than she wants and digs in the garden she's finally started to tend. Still, she holds a strange affection for him, and allows the dog to jump into the bed with her or sit at her feet under the table.

She wakes up one morning to find Shay barking at the back door and walks into the yard, barefoot, and finds a goat. It bleats at her from the corner of the yard, which has expanded overnight and now contains a small structure with two walls and a roof.

The goat bleats at her again and she ignores it, feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs. Shay barks at the goat until she gets the bucket from the shed and sticks it under the animal. Her hands move on their own as she milks it, as if she's used to milking farm animals and feeding chickens and caring for a damn dog that barks too much and eats her shoes.

Suddenly, an image of her doing that exact thing comes to her mind. She sees hands, smaller and calloused, pulling on a cow's udder and hears someone singing. Her hands still and she grips the bucket, pulling it out from under the goat. Shay leaps the fence and runs for the stream to drink.

"Sleep, o babe, for the red bee hums the twilight's silent fall," she sings to the open air, the same song she'd heard in her mind. The next few lines escape her as quickly as they came, and she shakes her head to clear it.

.

She sings again as she milks the next day, humming when the lyrics escape her. In the back of her mind, Meg hears another voice, softer and sweeter, singing the song to her. When she closes her eyes and stills her hand on the goat, she can see a dark-haired woman with a flat nose and wide, green eyes smiling at her.

Meg ignores it and goes about her chores. She feeds the chickens and the dog and the goat with food found in the shed. She collects water from the stream and sprinkles it over the garden she's come to think of as hers. She chops trees to fuel the stove and knows that the wood should need drying and preparation before she can burn it, but does not question why it does not here.

The chickens peck at the ground near her feet and she decides to name them. She's been here long enough for them to belong to her, she thinks, just like her stolen body. She calls one Azazel, one Tom, and one Alastair, after her dead family. She names the goat Lilith.

The fourth chicken she calls Crowley. Meg carries it to the edge of the garden and kills it for her dinner.

Blood stains her hands and the front of her dress, familiar and warm against her skin. She washes in the stream after she eats, snow falling into the frigid water and clinging to her eyelashes.

She looks down to find the stab wound is smaller, almost closed.

The sun still shines down without a hint of twilight falling, but as she walks back to the cottage, the snow stops falling.

.

Spring extends beyond her yard a little each time Meg wakes. A rabbit pauses just outside her fence as she milks Lilith, its fur a light brown instead of white and looking just a little bit thinner.

For the first time since her escape attempt, Meg goes beyond the edge of the forest where she chops her wood. The gate creaks as it opens and Shay runs beside her, sniffing at the emerging plant life. She unlaces her boots and lets the newly-grown grass brush against her stockings.

The grass eventually fades away back into snow the deeper she goes into the forest, and Meg turns back around. Experimentally, she twirls once, twice, the skirt of her dress flying out around her. Her petticoats rustle in the faint wind and she stops.

She sees the image of another girl in another dress, spinning in another place and laughing as the afternoon sun shines down to warm her skin. She cannot shake the image and twirls again.

"What do you remember of your human life?" Castiel had asked her in the hospital, shortly after he woke up.

"Nothing," she'd answered, not looking up from her magazine.

Feeling foolish, Meg stops and goes to collect her eggs.

.

The books along the wall seem more inviting, and she picks one at random and flips it open, not bothering to read the spine. _Great Expectations_ stares at her from the front page, and she stuffs it back onto the shelf. _The Great Gatsby_ sits next to it.

_Read that in High School,_ the real Meg Masters whispers to her. _I loved it._

Meg curls up on the couch and reads the book until Shay barks at her for dinner.

_I read that in three different High Schools_, Sam Winchester complains in her mind. _It gets boring after a while. _

She finishes the book anyway and slides it back in place on the shelf. Next to it she finds a Driver's Education manual and passes it over. _The Five People You Meet in Heaven should be in here somewhere, _chimes another voice in her head, a girl named Adrianna from Colorado she'd possessed years ago. _I loved that book. _

Meg crawls under her quilts, ignoring the voices from her past vessels running through her head.

The next morning is blissfully filled with silence.

.

Shay grows to the size of a Newfoundland, easily able to knock her down when he begs for food. She considers kicking him out into the yard with the chickens and the goat, but drops the thought when he starts bringing her back rabbits and squirrels to eat.

The days are boring. She fills them with chores and naps and books to eat up time. The sun never stops shining, and she builds a fence around her little garden with wire and wood from the shed to keep the rabbits out.

She and Shay walk through the woods, where spring takes over a little more each time she they venture out. The hound takes down a deer one day and it takes her hours to drag it back to the cottage so she can skin and clean it.

_We'll eat well tonight, _a male voice whispers in the back of her head. _Your mom will be able to make a nice soup from this. _

She banishes the voice and focuses on her task. An icebox materializes in the kitchen for the meat.

She cooks the deer's heart and spends an hour at the table reading _Hamlet_ while she eats and Shay naps on her feet under the table.

For a moment, she thinks it almost peaceful.

.

"No, bad dog. Please, get off me."

Meg rolls out of bed at the voice and runs for the door, bare feet smacking against the wood and her nightgown billowing behind her. _Castiel. _

"Shay, get off him!" she snaps. Her hound runs back to her, tongue lolling out happily. Castiel stares at her, naked as a newborn, with a stab wound red and angry looking in his chest. "What are you doing here, Clarence?"

"I died," he says, glancing around the cabin. "But this does not appear to be my Heaven."

She snorts. "Yeah, no shit. But angels don't go to Heaven when they die."

"I'm not an angel anymore," he tells her gently. Meg raises her eyebrows at him, and then suddenly he's hugging her, crushing her nose against his chest. "They didn't tell me you were dead."

"I told Sam to tell you," she mutters, letting him hug her. "Guess he forgot."

"You saw Sam?"

"Yeah, ages and ages ago. He stopped by for a couple of minutes and wondered out into the woods. What, did the great Winchester not come back to life?"

"He wasn't dead, just in a coma," Castiel explains, letting go of her. "I believe I need some clothes."

"I'll see if I can find you something that's not a dress and then we'll swap stories," she tells him. He follows her into the cottage where she finds men's clothes in the wardrobe, old-fashioned and entirely too big for her. She watches Castiel wrestle with the suspenders before she helps him, and remembers another man with blue eyes wearing something similar.

"You're an idiot," she tells him when he's finished explaining the angel trials and being tricked by Metatron. "Good on you for gettin' some, though. Too bad she stabbed you." Her own nearly-closed stab wound throbs for the first time in what feels like months, and she rubs it through her nightgown.

"Where are we?" he asks. "What is this place?"

"Hell if I know," she answers, crawling into his lap. "Forget about that. Why don't you show me what she taught you?"

"Meg, I…"

She shushes him and pulls the suspenders off his shoulders, thinking that she shouldn't have dressed him at all. Shay barks and Castiel calmly takes her off his lap before shoving the dog out the back door and coming back to her.

After, she lets him cuddle with her and traces the edge of his stab wound with her finger, head pillowed on his chest. "A leanbhan, the low bell rings, my little lamb to rest, and angel dreams 'til morning sings, its music in your breast," she sings quietly.

"What's that?" he asks, shifting on the bed.

"Just something I remember," she tells him. "I don't know. Ever since I got here I keep hearing things and seeing things."

"I wish I could tell you where 'here' is," he says.

Meg rolls out of his embrace and dresses to go feed the goat. "It doesn't matter where here is. It's better than oblivion, which is what demons are supposed to get. Not by much, but it is."

"Maybe it _is_ Heaven," he suggests. "Your Heaven, I mean. Not mine."

"Piss on that," she snaps, pulling on her boots. "There aren't any Hellhounds in Heaven, and it can't be as boring as this place is."

"Maybe it's some kind of limbo."

"Isn't that wonderful. Get dressed and help me feed my chickens if you want to eat today."

.

"Where do you remember that song from?" he asks. Meg scowls at him from the fence and throws another stick for Shay to chase.

"I don't fucking know," she answers. "I just remembered it."

"What else do you remember?" he probes.

"I know how to milk the damn goat and how to skin a damn rabbit, and I've never done any of those things before," she says. "But they feel familiar, like I have." He nods, and goes back to staring into space. Shay barks and drops a stick at his feet. "Throw the stick for him, Clarence."

"Maybe you're remembering being human," he suggests, watching the hound chase down the stick. "He's rather friendly, for a Hellhoud."

Meg rolls her eyes. "I'd rather not remember that shit, thank you very much."

Shay returns with the stick, and Castiel throws it again.

.

"The sun never sets here," he observes, sitting up in bed. Meg snorts and doesn't look up from her copy of _Lord of the Flies_.

"No shit."

"Where did all your books come from?" he asks, walking over to the shelf.

"I don't know, they were just here. I remember all of them, though. The real Meg Masters read a lot of them in High School. There's a law book in there I remember from being in Sam's head. There's a couple in there from some of my other meatsuit's, too," she explains.

"So it's not just your memories, then," he mutters, pulling a book out. "_The Cat in the Hat?_"

"It's a kid's book," she answers. "Shut up and read or go do something."

"We could always go to bed," he suggests.

Meg laughs for the first time since she came to the cottage. "Are you trying to seduce me, Mr. Angel?"

"Possibly."

.

She dreams, curled up next to him in bed. Every time she falls asleep Meg's assaulted with images and smells, voices and faces. She sees the dark-haired woman again, sweeping a floor in a blue dress. There's a dark-haired man and the smell of rabbit stew with boiled potatoes.

She sees more chickens and hears children giggling as she scatters feed at her feet. The man yells to come in for supper and gives a laugh as she touches her face, brushing dirt from her cheek.

She dreams of a dirt crossroad in the country, mud squishing between her toes as she faces a red-eyed woman dressed in white. "Please," she hears herself say. "We can't lose another one. Please."

"It will cost you," the woman says, twirling her blonde hair around her fingers.

"Whatever you want," she says in the dream. Her voice is rougher than it is now, and she speaks with a heavy accent that Meg cannot place. "Everything we have. Just please."

"I don't want material things," the crossroads demon tells her. "But I will take your soul. The dead thing in your belly comes back to life, and ten years later, you come straight down to us."

She can feel the blood, sticky on her thighs. Something slithers from her body. "I'll do it. Take it."

The demon smiles and pulls her into a kiss by the front of her dress. Meg gasps as the blood vanishes and she feels the baby kick. "I'll see you in ten years, beautiful."

Meg wakes up with the taste of sulfur on her lips and an empty feeling in her womb.

.

"I remember my deal," she tells Castiel, walking through the woods. He takes her hand and squeezes it. She lets him and doesn't pull away. "I had a baby and I miscarried. The third one in a row. It was still coming out of me when I made the deal and the demon put it back together." She laughs. "As demon deals go, that's not that bad. At least I didn't sell my soul for a bigger cock."

"Did it live?" he asks.

"Yeah, long and happy life as far as I know," she answers. "It was a girl. We named her Myrna."

Castiel squeezes her hand again, and Meg finally pulls it out of his grasp. In love with him or no, she's still a demon, and she's not going to give into the romantic, human feelings coursing through her.

He tugs her back to him and kisses the side of her head. Meg rolls her eyes. "I'm over it, really. It happened a long time ago, I'm guessing. I've been a demon for centuries now."

"Demons don't get an afterlife," he points out.

"Not much of an afterlife," she counters, walking again. "This is bullshit is what it is."

"Maybe my father is giving you a chance at peace," he suggests. "There's no fighting here, and no struggling."

"It's boring. If I hadn't actually gone to Hell, I would think this was it," she says. "It's quiet here, there's no one around. Demons need fighting and death and destruction."

"Maybe you're not really a demon anymore. Not completely, anyway."

She snorts and makes her eyes go black. "It's not possible."

"God can do anything He wishes," Castiel tells her. He pauses on the path. "There's snow here."

"There used to be a lot more of it," she snaps, turning around. "Let's go back to the house. I'm hungry, and Shay is probably driving himself crazy with us gone. I swear, he better not be eating my spare pair of boots."

.

"I feel something pulling me away," he says.

Meg rolls over in bed and looks at him. "Going to Heaven?"

"I don't think so." Castiel rises from the bed and walks to the back door and opens it. "I see a path in the woods."

"We always walk on the footpath," she says sleepily.

"No, another one. It's stone, like the one to the front door," he tells her. "Something wants me to walk it. It's calling to me. Telling me to come back, whatever that means." Meg joins him at the door and runs her fingers down his chest until she hits his stab wound.

"This thing ever hurt you?" she asks.

"It's throbbing now," he answers, stepping into the yard. "Will you come with me?"

"I don't see a path," she tells him. "This happened before, when Sam was here. He saw one and I didn't." She glances at him. "You should go then."

"Will you be okay here?" he asks.

Meg shrugs. "I've made it so far." She walks with him to the gate. The chickens cluck and the goat bleats. "Go. Don't die again, either. Make sure the next girl you sleep with doesn't stab you."

Castiel leaves her yard and closes the gate behind him. "I care for you a great deal," he tells her, leaning back over the fence.

"Yeah, I love you, too," she answers. "Scat." He kisses her softly and turns to walk down the path. Meg leans against the gate and watches him until he vanishes into the trees. The stab wound in her stomach throbs for a moment and then closes completely, leaving no scar.

When she goes inside, the wardrobe is bare of men's clothes. She slips into the bed and can still smell him on the sheets. Shay jumps up next to her and whines, pushing against her hands.

When she wakes the snow's returned and the world is silent.

.

The snow creeps back up to the edge of her yard, falling harder than she remembers. Shay is delighted and rolls in it, digging out dens and burying the bones she tosses him after her meals. Birds stop singing in the trees and no more rabbits run into her yard.

Without Castiel the silence is worse than before. She sleeps, ignoring the bleating of the goat and Shay scratching at the door, and tries to stop the memories from pouring into her head.

Unable to stop them, Meg dreams of Hell. When she closes her eyes she can feel the fire on her skin and the blades in her hand. Each time she wakes the smell of blood hangs heavy in the air. Azazel whispers to her, promising paradise to those who follow Lucifer.

When she handles a knife to skin her dinner, Meg can almost feel the warmth of Alastair's hand over hers, guiding her movements and explaining the best ways to carve into a fresh soul. Her brother stands beside her and grins over the remains of a family in Ohio and tells her she is beautiful.

She dreams of what was once her happiest memory. She stands in the middle of a slaughter with Azazel, the grass under their bare feet soaked in human blood. Bodies lie around them and viscera coats the ground. In the dream, her true father takes her face in his hands and she wants to lean into his touch and hear his promises.

"You do such beautiful work, my daughter," he tells her. "The things we will create together, you and I." Azazel kisses her forehead, and all at once Meg feels safe and warm and loved.

When she opens her eyes the smell of death invades the cottage. She can still feel the warmth on her skin from her father's kiss. For the first time since she was reborn on the rack, Meg allows herself to weep. She blinks the tears away as quickly as she can and moves about her chores.

Azazel does not visit her dreams again.

.

She wakes to find clouds covering the sun and rain pouring from the sky. Shay runs into her kitchen and shakes his fur, splattering her with droplets of water. She steps into the yard and lets the rain fall over her, warmer than any winter rain should be, until she's soaked. Her dress clings to her like a second skin and the mud squishes between her stolen toes.

Thunder rumbles in the sky and lightening makes the world flash blue. She stands and lets the sounds and scents of her world wash over her.

This is not what she imagined the afterlife to be.

.

"Aibheall from the gray rock comes to wrap the world in thrall. A leanbhan O, my child, my joy, my love and heart's desire, the crickets sing you lullaby, beside the dying fire," she sings as she feeds the chickens. The song comes to her clearer, and somewhere in her memories, Meg hears her old self singing it to her miracle child.

She props the back door open with a broom and lies in the sun to read, shielding her eyes with a battered copy of _Fight Club. _The snow begins to melt again, and a rabbit sprints through the yard and tries to dig under her garden fence.

She naps outside in the sun, the book over her face and Shay pressed against her side. When she wakes, she finds men's clothes at the bottom of the wardrobe and adds more water to the soup.

Shay barks as she finishes cooking. The hound scratches at the front door and whines, and Meg wonders which of her allies or enemies have died this time.

"Where the Hell are we, Cas?" Dean barks from the other side of the door. Meg sighs and pulls another bowl from the cupboard. "Why are we _naked_?"

"Dean, I can explain."

"Just come in the door, assholes," she calls, stirring the soup. "Shay, heel."

"Meg?" Dean shouts. The door creaks open and Castiel runs in, Dean following slowly.

"I can't believe you died_ again_," she says, letting Castiel hug her. "Clarence, go put on some clothes." She looks over his shoulder at Dean. "You, too."

"Where the Hell are we?" Dean asks her. "What are you doing here? Why are in in a _dress_?"

"It was here," she answers, turning back to the stove. "Put on clothes. That's a view no one wants to see. Clarence, toss a quilt onto the couch. He's not crawling into bed with us."

Dean yelps and reaches for a weapon when Shay runs toward him, but Castiel only pets the hound and pulls on loose pants and a collared shirt. "He won't hurt you, Dean. Shay is rather gentle."

"It's a Hellhound, Cas!" Dean argues, pulling on his own pair of pants. "Are these suspenders? What kind of place is this?"

"We don't know," Meg snaps, slamming his soup bowl onto the table. "Just shut up and eat and tell me how you idiots managed to get killed this time."

"We're not dead, I don't think," Castiel tells her. "We were put into a coma by a witch. Sam should save us."

"Good for you," she says sourly. "You get to go back to life and I'll still be stuck here."

"Good," Dean spits. Meg hits him with her soup spoon and takes his bowl away, setting it on the floor for Shay.

"I'll make you sleep in the yard," she threatens. Castiel laughs and she smiles at him.

"I'm not just gonna sit in the kitchen and talk to a dead demon. I'm gonna find my way outta here," Dean says, standing up and heading for the door. "Cas?"

"I will stay here," Castiel answers. "You will not find a way out until it's time, Dean. You might as well enjoy the quiet while you have the chance. Rest."

"There is no way out, Dean, I tried. You'll just loop around and wind up back at the stream," Meg adds, gathering up the bowls. "Take Shay with you; dog needs a walk."

"I'm not taking a goddamned Hellhound with me," Dean snaps, slamming the back door behind him. Shay whines and slinks under the table to lie on top of Castiel's bare feet.

"How long do you think it'll take him to make it back around?" she asks.

"I estimate a day or so," Castiel answers. "Would you like to hear about what's going on in the world since I left?"

"Later," she says, smirking at him. "Toss Shay outside and meet me on the bed."

.

Dean bursts back into the room, cursing, while they sleep. Meg sits up on the bed and draws the curtains back to flood the room with light, ignoring her nakedness.

"Jesus Christ, you two! Put some clothes on!" he screeches.

"You shouldn't curse," Castiel mutters from under the quilts.

"Since you're already up and probably hungry, why don't you go feed the chickens and get the eggs?" Meg suggests, still staring out the window. "Shay probably needs to be let in, too."

"Just put some clothes on," Dean says again, stalking out the back door. Meg ignores him and nudges Castiel.

"Clarence, look outside," she says quietly. He does, frowning.

"It looks darker. Not by much, but still…"

"It's never done that before. It's always been noontime sun, except for the time it rained." A growl rumbles in the back of her throat. "It's changing."

"It could be a good thing," Castiel suggests, kissing her bare shoulder.

Meg shrugs him off. "Or a bad thing. No way to tell."

"You two better have clothes on!" Dean calls from outside. "Get away from me, you stupid dog." Meg pulls her dress over her head and hands Castiel his shirt.

.

Having Dean around is annoying. He snaps at her dog and paces the cottage like a caged animal, worrying about what's going on back in the real world no matter how many times Castiel tells him to calm down.

Meg leaves him to it and spends time in her yard, watering her flowers and playing with Shay. Castiel joins her most days, and the sky doesn't get any darker, although it doesn't return to its former noontime state.

"Do you see your path yet?" she asks every time they wake and step outside, her heart leaping into her throat.

"No," he answers each time, and her heart settles back where it belongs.

.

"Have you remembered anything else?" he asks as they walk in the woods.

"Just some more of the lullaby," she answers.

"Do you feel any different?"

"Less on edge, maybe. I'm into the routine of this place now, I guess. Or I got used to how boring it is. Either way, it's not making me feel as crazy anymore."

Castiel nods. "That's good, I suppose."

"It's not. I can't keep doing this much longer. Demons aren't built for shit like this. I want out."

"You'll get out eventually," he promises, taking her hand. She doesn't try to shake him off and squeezes his hand tighter instead.

"I missed having you around," she admits. "It's twice as boring without you. I'm not too thrilled you went and got yourself cursed, though."

"I did not think you would be," he says. "If you did come back, would you still go after Crowley?"

She shrugs. "I'd have to. It's him or me. If I did somehow come back to life he'd just hunt me down and kill me again or torture me for eternity. I'd have to put on my big girl pants and go back to war. That's how it works."

"But if Crowley wasn't an issue what would you do?" he asks.

"I don't know," she answers honestly. "Keep fighting, I guess. Find a new cause. There's always something to kill."

"You could be a hunter," he jokes.

"Demons don't become hunters," she snaps.

"You could stay still for a while. Take a break from the running and killing."

"That would be even more boring than this place."

.

"Make your eyes go black," Castiel requests. Dean rolls his eyes from the sofa, but Meg tries to do it anyway. "Meg, please?"

"I just did it," she says.

"No you didn't." Castiel's eyebrows draw together in confusion. "Try moving something with your mind."

Meg holds her hand out and tries to jerk _Fight Club_ out of Dean's grasp. She screams when it doesn't work and sprints for the kitchen. She tries over and over again to make her eyes go black as she stares into her distorted reflection in a spoon.

"What the fuck is going on?" she snaps. "Castiel!"

"You're changing," he says. Dean snorts and doesn't look up from his book. "Something here is giving you your soul back. That's why you're getting the memories. That's what this place is." Castiel gestures around the cottage. "Everything in here is from different points in history. It's your human memories mixed with your vessel's memories. All of your past vessels."

"If I have my meatsuit's memories shouldn't I have electricity?" she asks angrily.

"Why the Hell are we here?" Dean pipes up from the couch. "Shouldn't we be in our own dreams or in Heaven if we're dying?"

"We made her more human," Castiel answers.

"Piss on that," she growls. Dean howls with laughter from the couch.

"You're off your rocker again, Cas," he says.

"If my theory is correct, you're changing," Castiel tells her. "Meg, this is a good thing."

"Like Hell it is!" she snaps. "A human? Who wants to be a human?"

"Hey!" Dean protests. "Better than being a demon!"

"Being weak and fragile and oh so killable isn't better than being practically indestructible," she argues.

Castiel continues to stare at her. "Meg, you sacrificed your humanity for your child. You died to save us. You were already on the path to redemption before you died."

"Bullshit. Demons don't get redemption."

"You are," Castiel says. His face breaks out in a soft smile. "My father must have seen something in you."

.

"Are you certain I should be doing this?"

"Just swing the damn axe, Clarence," she says, rolling her eyes. "You want to eat tonight? We need wood."

"I thought you needed to dry wood out before you burn it."

"Not here for some reason. Chop, chop, feathers. Literally."

"I still think that Dean should be the one doing this," he protests, lifting the axe. "Or you."

"I chop down trees every couple of days. You can do it. You need to learn."

Castiel sighs and begins to chop through the trunk. Meg watches him from a large rock, head in her hands. "Where did you get the idea that my soul is coming back?"

"If humans can cure demons, then my father must be able to if he chooses," Castiel answers.

Meg quirks and eyebrow. "Demons are human souls twisted beyond the point of redemption," she points out. "That's kinda our whole shtick. Even if I was doing good things, I wasn't 'on the path to redemption' like you thought."

"Well, then it might be more accurate to say that you're regaining your humanity," he says.

She snorts. "Why me, though? Helping you idiots out can't be enough to make up for all the shit I've done."

"Making up for it isn't the point." Castiel heaves a sigh and rests the axe on the ground. "I am sure this is my father's work, and he has seen fit to spare you from oblivion and to forgive you. Isn't that enough?"

Meg rises from the rock and rips the axe from his hand. "It still doesn't make sense," she says, driving it into the wood. "There shouldn't be a way to cure a demon in the first place. We're supposed to be beyond saving."

"No one is beyond the reach of God's love," he tells her gently. She ignores him and drives the axe into the trunk a final time. The small tree falls and makes no sound as it hits the ground.

"You suck at this," she informs Castiel, handing him the axe and picking up part of the tree. Her demonic strength remains, at least for now. "If you'd been alive when I was human my father never would've let you marry me."

"I suppose I should be grateful that demonstrations of strength are no longer a requirement for courtship," he says dryly, lifting the axe over his shoulder.

She rolls her eyes at him, grateful he's dropped the God talk. "We're not having that conversation."

.

"Meg, we're going," he tells her one morning when she wakes. "Dean and I both see a stone path in the woods."

"Get out, then," she mutters, rolling over.

"Come see us out?" he asks. "Please."

"If you really want," she says, throwing aside the quilt.

"I looked up the song when I got back," he says. "It's an old Celtic lullaby."

"Guess I was Celtic then."

"Do you remember your name?" He stares at her, a hopeful expression on his face.

Meg shakes her head and walks him to the door. "Not yet."

"Cas, we need to go!" Dean barks from the gate, pushing Shay away with his foot.

"Don't kick my dog," she growls, patting her thigh. Shay runs to her and sits, tongue lolling out happily.

"I'll see you soon," Castiel promises.

"Don't die or get cursed again," she orders. "Say hello to Sam for me."

"I will." He kisses her and walks through the gate with Dean. Again, she does not see the stone path they walk on as the two of them move into the trees. She leans against the gate and stares after them until the wind becomes chilly on her face.

For the first time since her arrival, the sun sets.

.

No matter how far she walks into the woods Meg cannot find snow. Shay runs behind her and sniffs at everything. He startles a rabbit and streaks after it, rustling the underbrush, and comes back to her with the furry body dangling in his jaws.

She walks until the sun sets and rises again before she turns around. Hunger claws at her, and Shay brings her a pheasant, whining when he hears her stomach growl. She ignores the hound until limps through the gate and into the kitchen.

When she goes back outside to throw the bones and innards over the fence, Meg notices her chickens are missing.

.

The chickens do not return, and the coop disappears as if it was never there, along with the feed bag. Meg ignores it and tries to milk Lilith, only to find the goat dry. Books begin to vanish from the shelf, and clothes from the wardrobe.

She goes outside one morning to find Lilith and her bucket gone. Shay sniffs around the yard and whines, searching for her. Her flowers and vegetables die as the days pass.

The sun continues to rise and set, giving Meg a way to chart the days. Her hair begins to grow, and each time she wakes a little more of the blonde is gone, replaced by her vessel's original color. When the last evidence of Crowley's torture is gone from her, Meg begins to dream again.

There's a human husband and three human children counting Myrna, laughing and smiling and doing farm work. There are dogs in the house and a cat with kittens in a basket, nestled in the kitchen near the woodstove. There are rolling, green hills covered in grass and bathed in sunlight.

She dreams and sees her beautiful baby girl clearly.

"A leanbhan O, the paly moon hath brimmed her cusp in dew, and weeps to hear the sad sleep tune, I sing O love to you," she sings to her miracle child, holding the girl on her hip and trying to forget her demon deal. The girl's bright blue eyes stare up at her and she traces her daughter's heart-shaped face with a finger. "Faintly sweet doth the chapel bell ring, ring o'er the valley dim. Tearmann's peasant voices swell, in fragrant evening hymn. A leanbhan O, the low bell rings, my little lamb to rest, and angel dreams 'til morning sings, its music to your breast."

She rocks Myrna on her hip and the baby giggles up at her, dark hair already beginning to sprout on her head. In the dream, Meg knows that she has nine years left with her husband and two other children and her precious child she sold her soul for.

"Shylah, come to bed," her human husband calls. "It's late."

Meg wakes up with tears on her face.

.

She tests the name on her tongue as she waters her dying flowers. The grass browns under her feet and she traces the letters in the dust. Shay, looking older than she's ever seen a Hellhound look, thumps this tail against the ground and sends up clouds of dust.

The sun sets and Meg tucks herself into bed, all but one quilt gone from the top of the mattress. Shay curls up beside her and shoves his white muzzle under her hand, demanding to be petted. She's fairly certain that Hellhounds aren't supposed to age like normal dogs, but nothing about her situation has been normal.

She wakes up with a cold body beside her and all the furniture missing from the cottage except for her bed. In the yard she finds a solitary shovel and begins to dig, moving aside the dead grass and dry earth until she reaches the moist, rich soil. When she struggles from the hole, dirt plastered to her body and blisters on her hands, the noontime sun shines down on her.

She wraps Shay in the bed sheet and rolls him into the grave, wincing at the thump his body makes. When she's finished burying him, Meg rips a plank from the fence and stands it up in the dirt at the head of the mound.

She walks back into the cottage to find the bed gone and ignores the empty, dusty spaces where the furniture should be. Instead she walks out the front door and down to the stream to wash the dirt from her body.

Meg strips off her clothing and leaves it on the bank as she plunges into the once-icy water, now warm and lower than she's ever seen it. The stream only comes up to her waist in the middle, and she has to lie along the bottom of the stream to scrub the dirt from her hair.

When she breaks the surface of the water the cottage is gone as if it never existed; only Shay's maker rises from the flat expanse of green, healthy grass that now springs from the ground. Her clothes have vanished from the bank and she turns, naked as the day she arrived, toward the woods.

A stone path cuts through the trees as far as she can see, starting at the bank and twisting through the forest. She looks back at Shay's marker once, hesitates, and then climbs from the stream. The water flows off her body and soaks the warm stones under her feet.

Meg walks on the uneven stones until the sun sets, but the warmth does not fade from the path under her feet. The sun comes up and hunger does not gnaw at her belly like it has for so long. Her feet do not bleed like on her first trek through the woods. The forest is full of life, but no animals run over the seemingly endless stone path, staying well away from the edge of the unnatural structure.

The trees begin to thin and she walks until the path abruptly ends along with the forest. Hills stretch in front of her, green and rolling and as beautiful as in her dreams of them. _Come home_, they whisper. _You're safe. _

She steps from the stones and onto the grass, lets it poke between her toes, familiar and comforting. She turns around to find the forest and the stone path has vanished, replaced by more hills and a seemingly endless field of grass. Meg walks until she finds a perfect patch of sunshine and lies on the springy earth. She inhales the scent of home and runs her fingers over the carpet of greenery.

_A leanban O, my child, my joy, my love and heart's desire, the crickets sing you lullaby, beside the dying fire, _she hears her human mother sing. _Sleep, Shylah, you did well. You're forgiven. _

The wind rustles the grass around her and Meg sleeps.

.

Meg wakes up to the beeping of a heart monitor and the feeling of a scratchy hospital blanket tucked around her. She stares at the lines on the screen and watches it for a moment, the rest of the hospital as quiet as the forest when she first arrived.

"Hey."

Meg turns her head and stares at Castiel seated next to her bed, dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt that looks like it belongs to Dean. "What's up, Clarence?" she croaks.

"You made it back," he says, lightly touching her arm. "It took me a while to find your vessel. I wasn't sure you would come back to this one specifically. Officially, the girl was in a coma. The original spirit has passed."

"Guess it's all mine now," she mutters sleepily. Meg tries to shift on the bed and groans when her muscles refuse to obey her. "Damn, I must've been out longer than I thought if they aren't working."

"Yes. It took you a long time to come back. Almost two years have passed here," he says. "You found your path?"

She smiles softly at him. "I found my name. Shylah."

He smiles back at her. "I'm pleased for you."

"I'll stay Meg to everyone else, though. It'd just confuse the idiots if I didn't." Meg takes a deep breath. "Am I human now? I can't really feel anything."

"Completely human," Castiel tells her. "Both of us are. We'll have to make the best of it I suppose."

"Anything interesting happen while I was out?" she asks.

"Crowley's dead," he says softly. "There are still a few demons around, but for the most part they're gone."

"The angels?"

The smile falls from Castiel's face. "All home but me. That was the price. My grace was destroyed when it was used in Metatron's spell."

"That blows. I really am kinda sorry," she says. Silence falls between them, and Meg manages to move her leg a little.

After a moment, Castiel pushes away from the bed and stands. "There's more, but it can wait. I'll go call the doctors and the Winchesters. Tell them you're awake."

"Make sure the boys don't kill me." She makes her fingers twitch as her old smirk returns to her face. Castiel brushes her hair, once again a dark brown, behind her ears and kisses her forehead softly.

"No one will try to kill you now, Meg. Your war is over."

"Peacetime better not be as boring as that damn cottage."

"With the Winchesters in our lives I very much doubt it will be," he promises. "Rest. You're safe here."

He kisses her forehead again and leaves the room. Meg settles deeper into the hospital bed and lets the feeling of safety wash over her. The sun peeks through the windows, warm and real and so much better than the sun in her woods.

She stares after Castiel and does not think about why God chose her, out of all demons, to be worthy of redemption and a second chance at human life. She does not think about how she will die one day, or how weak her body is, or the fact that she will have to learn to walk again.

Instead, Meg hums and lets the sun wash over her.

* * *

_Song used is called The Gartan Mother's Lullaby. Basically, I heard it and wanted to put it in a fic. _


End file.
